


Fortune Loves The Bold

by Genesis3Chi



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, M/M, Meet-Cute, softe, viktor is smitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24472924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genesis3Chi/pseuds/Genesis3Chi
Summary: Yuuri believes himself a coward until a chance encounter with the God of Triumph, Success, and Victory
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 144





	Fortune Loves The Bold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Drop of Phantasia fantasy zine for 18+!!! On Ice Discord Server (https://discord.gg/TYMxcAB) but ultimately passed over for another piece. I love this piece, but the other just about scraped past it in my favour.

Yuuri had been talking himself into and out of this for a week. He’d seen the temple under construction, watched its pillars rise high above his head as new stone was added daily. He remembered the day it was officially finished, Phichit had invited him to the grand opening party. Yuuri had declined, there would be people and crowds and alcohol flowing free.

All in all, he thought it better to stay away. The new temple was erected in service and gratitude for the god of triumph, commissioned in thanks for their great victory over the roving tribesmen of the west who tried to sack the city some years back. Yuuri didn’t remember much of that, but Mari did, she said she’d had some very scary talks with Okaasan about what to do if a pillager grabbed her.

Overall, Yuuri was just happy that they were all safe, the specifics didn’t matter much to him.

Yuuri’s interest in the temple began one day in the market. He’d been sent to get a specific kind of fish for the Katsuki family restaurant. Okaasan was very precise with her cooking and demanded only the best ingredients, and this fish had a terribly short catching season. But when he got to the stall there was only one package of it left, and someone else had just picked it up. Yuuri watched, heartbroken as the other customer lifted his coin pouch to pay. He rushed over, hoping to see that he was wrong, that there were really stacks of crates full of fish just out of view. But when he got to the stall, the fish he needed was truly gone, and the seller said he’d just sold out, no more till next year.

Yuuri crumpled. They wouldn’t be able to sell their signature dish for the first time in years. His parents' restaurant wouldn’t make enough money and would fail and they’d all be homeless and have to beg people on the street. His breath came in frantic gasps as he looked desperately for the man who had bought the last crate of fish. He had to catch him, offer double the money, pay or do anything to get that fish!

There! A crop of silver hair bobbing above the sea of blacks and browns. Shouldn’t be too hard to follow. Yuuri ran, tripping and stumbling as streams of tears blinded him. Waves of what-ifs and terrible scenarios of what Mari may have to do or his father, or— No. He had to get that fish. If he got the fish then everything would be fine!

“Sir!” he yelled, voice shaking with exertion and rising despair. “Please!”

Various heads turned but not the silver one.

Yuuri ran faster, vision greying at the edges as his lungs floundered, weaving in and out of people but also just generally wobbling now. He grabbed the man’s tunic as he slipped to the ground by his feet, desperately trying to breathe.

Bright blue eyes looked down at him, head cocked. “Yes?” A moment later. “Are you all right?”

Yuuri wheezed, shaking his head and pointing at the crate under the man’s arm.

His brow furrowed, “The fish?”

Yuuri nodded.

“What about it?”

Yuuri spoke in the smallest voice, quiet and weak, “I need it.” He curled into himself on the floor, chest aching and feeling such a fool.

The silver-haired man scoffed then considered Yuuri before crouching down to offer a hand up. Yuuri slowly accepted, climbing to his feet with legs like jelly.

“Why do you need it?” the man asked, curious.

“It’s the biggest seller at my parents’ restaurant, they need it to make sure they stay open another year.”

The other man hummed, raising a single finger to his chin, “I need it for the temple, it’s the god’s fav—”

“I’ll do anything for it!” Yuuri pleaded, eyes wide and fists clenched.

The other man pursed his lips for a moment then smiled. “Tell you what,” he said. “I will take one, and you can have the rest for the price I paid.” He took one fish wrapped in its paper.

Yuuri nodded enthusiastically, “Yes! Oh, yes! Thank you!”

“But!” the man said, “On one condition.”

Yuuri quieted from his profuse thanks.

“I want you to go to the temple. Bring the god some of your parents’ food as an offering. It seems only fair the god gets to properly meet the man who took his favourite food.”

Yuuri barely paid attention, their margins would be a squeeze but manageably so. “Thank you!” Yuuri thrust the money into the gentleman’s hand, grabbed the crate and ran home. The fish wouldn’t last long unprepared.

He didn’t think until later on how beautiful the man was, or how he had never seen him before.

Mari looked at Yuuri strangely when he said he needed her to go to the temple with a plate of their signature dish. “Why not go yourself?” she asked.

“Because it’s embarrassing. Me? In the god of courage’s temple. Come on. I’d get kicked out.”

She raised a brow but shrugged, wrapping the bowl neatly in a pretty cloth then traipsing off to the temple. It wasn’t that far away.

So it didn’t take her long to come back, dish still in hand.

Yuuri stared. No one would ever turn down his mother’s food, especially not their most famous dish.

“I was told to go away,” Mari said. “Send the cute boy with glasses, they said.”

“The guy with silver hair said that?”

Mari frowned, “Silver? There was definitely no one with silver hair.”

“But—”

“C’mon, Yuuri, it’ll get cold and gross. Don’t piss off temple people, it’ll be bad for business.” She put the dish in Yuuri’s hands and pushed him to the door.

Yuuri stuttered and blubbered, making excuses, but Mari pointed firmly toward the temple and so he went, shoulders hunching in.

When he arrived at the temple his lips were nibbled raw and he’d probably torn a few hangnails. He was going to be buried alive for not turning up himself straight away. They were going to hate him, think him weak, he’d be a stain on their altars to victory and success, a malignant odour in their halls of courage and pride.

He knocked, the beats weak and sound almost silent, almost wanting to put the dish down and run.

But the doors swung open before he could truly consider the idea. A beautiful woman at each door handle.

“Welcome!” the redhead said.

“Come in!” said the one with purple eyes.

Was everyone in this temple odd looking?

Yuuri shuffled in only to have the dish whisked out of his hands and cloak whipped off of his shoulders by the two attendants.

“I’ll prepare the table!” one said, while the other tutted, “Can’t meet Viktor looking like you’ve just come in off the road, I’ll clean you up, don’t worry!”

The dark-haired of the two led Yuuri into an antechamber with flowing water and draped fabrics. “Please, please,” she said, gesturing to the basins, “Wash and refresh yourself. I’ll style your hair if you like.”

Yuuri blinked at her. “My hair? Wha—”

“Oh! Maybe His Valiance prefers the natural look? I think you’d look smashing with a little pomade,” she stood behind him and rucked his hair back, “Yes, just a little for hold.”

“What’s my hair got to do with anything? I’m just delivering food!”

“Oh, silly me, I forgot! I’m Sara, what’s your name? Viktor didn’t tell me, he just said you’d be beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Yuuri was so lost. He waved his hands in front of her. “You’ve got the wrong person, I’m Yuuri, I’m just here to drop off the—”

“The fish! Yes, I know, Lord Viktor has been waiting, he’d hoped you’d come sooner, but better late than never.” She fluttered over to the draped fabrics, chose a rich blue with a silver braid before thrusting it into his hands. “Come, come, get changed quickly. Viktor’s waiting and he’s rather impatient.”

Yuuri obeyed, simply out of bafflement and peer pressure at this point. He changed and scrubbed his face - and don’t let it go unrecorded that he  _ did _ feel Sara wet his hair just to push it back, as if she thought he somehow wouldn’t notice. After he was dressed, Sara escorted him from the antechamber and through the great hall dominated by a familiar-looking statue. They came into a cosy dining room, lit dimly by candles everywhere, and with a banquet of fruits and dishes laid out. There, steaming in the middle, was his mother’s fish, placed on fine crockery of metals and materials Yuuri barely knew let alone had ever dined from.

“Sire?” Sara said, knocking on the open door till the silver-haired man Yuuri had encountered at the market looked up from the food he was blissfully contemplating.

“Yuuri!” Viktor, as Sara had called him, bounded over, his tunic barely covering him with the exuberance of it. It was a vibrant pink with gold details, more costly even than Yuuri’s new clothes.

Yuuri started to wonder and panic as to exactly what he’d got himself into. Viktor wasn’t just rich, he was  _ rich _ . What did he want from Yuuri?!

“I’m so glad you finally made it, I’ve been so excited to eat with you!”

Yuuri squeaked, “Eat with me? I brought the food for the offering like you told me, I thought the—” Then he got it.

No human had silver hair. The wealth. Living in the temple. The statue.

“Oh, my goodness, you’re the god and I took your food. Please spare me!” Yuuri dropped to his knees, pressed his forehead into the pristinely clean marble floor, wishing only that there was some dirt he could smear himself in just to show how unworthy he was, filth beneath the foot of the divine.

Sara nudged his foot with her own, whispering urgently, “Get up!” before evacuating the room with a gentle snick of the door closing.

Yuuri whimpered, sure he was about to be smited for disrespecting a deity in some way.

“Oh, no, no, don’t do that!” Viktor knelt down to stroke Yuuri’s head and usher him into a kneel as well. “You’re not in trouble. I said I wanted to meet you, didn’t I?”

“You wanted to… Oh.” Well yes, that day in the market, he had kind of agreed to meet with a god. He just hadn’t expected it to be quite so literal as this. “I— I thought it’d be more of a, sit and pray awkwardly with some acolyte and then leave.”

Viktor laughed. “Noooo! You got me!” His eyes narrowed, “I am better than just some acolyte, aren’t I?”

“Sara was nice?”

“Sara  _ is _ lovely! But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Sorry.”

“So?”

Yuuri quailed, “So, what?”

“Am I better than just praying awkwardly with some acolyte? I can at least hear you and answer you right now unlike some silly statue.” Viktor beamed, a wide, sunny thing that curved his lips into a dainty heart shape.

Yuuri’s heart beat faster. Yes, of course, a god should be inhumanly beautiful. But he’d never expected one to be so… “Adorable.”

Viktor’s smile fell into a flopped open-mouthed gasp, a hand slapping to his chest and another to his face. “Oh! No one has ever called me adorable before!”

Oh, goodness, Yuuri had said it out loud. He shook again in returned fear of the smiting.

“It’s always, ‘You look so gallant Viktor, you’re so heroic Viktor, don’t you just look so strong, Viktor.’ But never  _ adorable _ ! Oh, I  _ do _ like you.”

“Me? I thought I’d not even be let in.”

Viktor blinked, cocking his head in a very endearing way, like a toddler. “Why ever not?”

Yuuri looked down at the floor, unable to look at any of the finery around him, or Viktor’s pristine skin, especially not his unearthly eyes. “Well, I’m, y’know. Not brave. I don’t do well at things. I fail a lot.”

“So?”

“Well, isn’t that… your whole, y’know, your whole deal here.”

Viktor softened, his vibrancy fading away a little. He lifted Yuuri’s chin with one fingertip. Eyes gentle and tone serious, he said, “Yuuri, I don’t think you understand what you yourself are saying. You are everything I admire about humanity.”

A tear slipped. “Why?” Yuuri choked, “I’m rubbish, I’m scared all the time and I have panic attacks and it ruins everything.”

“Yes, and I’m so sorry for that, and I hope I can help a little. But don’t you see? You’re so much more scared than the average person, you suffer so much more from your fear, you feel sick and you shake and you cry, but you stand up and you clench your fists and dig your heels like a bulldog and you do it anyway.” Viktor’s smile returned, “I’m in awe of you.”

It was if the gentle caress Viktor was giving his chin passed some of his magical courage into Yuuri’s bloodstream, for he found the strength to take a slow breath and stop crying. “Really?” he asked, growing calmer.

“Yes. Do you think gods would lie?”

“Maybe? To make me feel better?”

Viktor chuckled, rising to his feet and pulling Yuuri up too. “Heh, maybe. If it works it works.” He winked, “Just goes to show that little bulldog doesn’t need much help to come out though, doesn’t it?”

Yuuri blushed.

“Anyway, come on! I’m so excited to try what you brought me! It smells so good!”

Yuuri followed him to the table, explaining the dish, what went into it and how. Viktor pulled a seat out for him, listening attentively as he himself sat. Yuuri carried on, telling stories about his mother and shenanigans in her kitchen as a child. Viktor put his chin on his hand and let Yuuri’s voice flow over him, soothing and warm.  _ Yes _ , the god thought,  _ I found him _ .


End file.
